Around here, Samhain means hard freezes are on their way.  Time to take a break from weeding and mulching the garden and do a bit of winterization, like:

• Putting hoses away --- Unhooking all of our sprinkler hoses and laying them out on a hill lets the water drain out.  I wind them from the uphill side and put the hoses away in the barn until next year.  Treated this way, we have cheap hoses that have already lasted 5 years and seem to have several more to go.
• Erecting quick hoops --- Greens and lettuce can handle frost, but I don't want to keep my eye on the forecast and scurry around once temperatures in the mid twenties are coming up.  Row cover fabric lets hot air vent out on beautiful sunny days while protecting the crops on cold nights, so it's okay to put my quick hoops up when daytime temperatures rise into the 60s.
• Protect the fig --- The fig held onto its leaves until this week's harder freezes, but now that the plant is bare, I can erect its winter protection. 
  

And then it's back to putting the garden to bed.  Happy Samhain/Halloween/All Soul's Day/Cross-Quarter Day!

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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